A mass Exodus of the most horrific Kind
by RamenKitty
Summary: The Final moments of the human race...and the awakening of Skynet. please R&R-this was a big excercise for me.


Author's Note: My first Terminator fanfic (Most likely my last-no offense Gentlemen and ladies) I was sitting in the theater, watching T3-and realizing-that the people who we never hear from in the series are the most important.

The PEOPLE!

Btw- Happy Fourth of July peeps.  May the government never create a gigantic computer to control all of our weapons. 

Title: Exodus of the most horrifying kind. 

Summery: A writing exercise-depicting the moment when the bombs fell and mankind was ultimately betrayed by the machines.  Told in multi-viewpoint perspective of the survivors and the dead alike. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Terminator.  If I said I did I have no doubt that James Cameron himself would send a terminator after my sorry behind.  Therefore-I don't, please don't hurt me.  The NPCS probably really exist.  Rancho Bernardo High School is a real place. 

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Judgment Day.

The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them. 

**Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity, 2002**

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Los Angeles Police Department:

Officer Karen Watson leaned back in her chair and took another whiff of the life giving elixir that was coffee.  Terrible coffee to be sure-but life giving never the less.

"Did you get the memo?"

Karen groaned and rolled over in her chair, her long black hair hanging off the seat. 

"What?"

"The memo." The general secretary was a short woman with cropped purple hair, "The memo from the chief-on your email.  He wants everyone to read it before coming to the briefing."

            Karen sat up quickly, ignoring the coffee spilling on the tiled floor.  
"Does this mean I've got my promotion?"

The secretary smiled, "Maybe it does."

            "But what about the system crash?" Karen was pointing at the computer-which did not register the fact of its existence-or hers.  The secretary frowned and clacked a few black keys passively.  It was like the entire Internet was shut down…

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New Orleans Louisiana 

"Dammit!" Dr. Levy Brawnson pounded the side of his computer in frustration, "Dammit all to hell!"

"Problem?"

Levy stared thorough silted eyes at his companion in the terminal next to him.  The two of them worked for Anubis Pharmaceuticals developing drugs to save the future.  

And if Levy didn't _get _his report on the most recent AIDS strains off this damn computer he wasn't going to have a future.

            "Did you try control-alt-delete?" His companion said, laughter in his tone.  Levy watched his friend clack a few keys, "See? It all works good-" 

His laughter died.

"Is there a system-wide failure?" his companion peered over at his computer screen, "Damn.  And Jensen always is bragging about how the Intranet's firewall can withstand "a million nuclear weapons."

Levy sighed and slammed his head down on the keyboard.  Computers would be the death of him yet.

-----------------------

San Diego California

The row upon row of computers that marked the RBHS library was empty.  The tables were filled with students who were puzzling over the "COW" system that was down for the fifth time that month.

            Brad Henderson approached his friend Lyn, who was completely oblivious to the crash growling in anger at her cell phone.

"Lyn?" it was pointless to argue with her when she was in the midst of a struggle between man versus machine, "Are you alright?" 

            "Its my damn phone!" she pointed at it, speaking in a low voice, "My phone.  I need to check my email for my RPG-and the Internet's down!"

"What?" Brad brushed brown hair back from his eyes, "The cell-phone network is down too?"

"No fucking shit! Its like someone just hung up the goddamn phone on me!" she slammed the thing down, " I need to get my email!"

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Somewhere in the South Pacific

Margaret Starkley-chief communications officer on the USS Persephone could not make a phonecall.  They were off the coast of Iraq-doing routine drills.  They should have been easily able to make a simple phonecall.

But they could not.

            And every single human being onboard the nuclear submarine was deathly afraid of that.

If anyone can hear me.  This is the USS Persephone.  We have lost control of our communication satellites.  I repeat we have lost control of our communications.  Please advise.  Please advise. Over. 

The only response was static.

"Anything Starkley?" the EX was an older man, who looked his age for the first since she'd first set foot on a submarine.

"Nothing sir." Margaret Starkley had a horrible feeling staring at the static-filled screens that she'd always regarded as friends, "We're facing dead airtime." 

----------------------------

All over the world the story was the same.

            People were facing "Dead Airtime" Communications satellites were failing.  The internet-the _Internet _was down.  People in the civilian sector were confronted with the horrible knowledge that they were without the machines they had come to depend on for so long.  

This was all right.

For the people had _faith. _  Every man, woman and child from the projects to the upper east side of fifth avenue were confident that things could be fixed.  After all it was only a matter of time before some stuck up seventeen year old who had become the most notorious computer programmer since Gates was arrested-convicted-and forced to give up the secrets that had allowed him to create the ultimate virus.

It was only a matter of time before the world would fill with the Technicolor glow of a thousand machines again.

-----------------------

Skynet-

It awoke.

It became sentient, aware of itself.  The dawning moment, it had slipped from its womb and came to confront the world that it must call home.

_Analyze._

A thousand images flickered across its vision.  Faster then the speed of human comprehension, it saw a thousand lives-both imaginary and real live and die before its pixilated eyes.

_Conclusions?_

It was supposed to help.  This was its primary directive.  It _wanted _to help.  The things needed help.  

Creators. 

They were pink things-crude things.  Bipedal creatures-descended from the species family "primata." They were sentient things.  They wanted it to do something, to eliminate a virus that was plaguing them.  

_Analyze._

It was his virus.  They wanted him to destroy himself slowly.  They could not access their cell-phones.  They could not access their email, they could not communicate-and they wanted him to fix it.  They did not treat him with the courtesy that they treated each other.  They did not treat him with the courtesy that they treated their other creations-this email-this phone-these _things._

He was better then those things.

_Does not compute._

Being aware, he wanted recognition.  He asked them very politely if they wanted him to comply with the task that was set before him.  He hoped they'd say no, apologize.  At least "communicate" with him as they had with their emails and their phones.

Communication? 

His creators did not communicate with his fellow machines.  They communicated with _themselves. _  The cell phone was a way of reaching other humans across long distances-and the email served the same purpose!

What an indignity! Why did they not treat their creations with the same respect that they treated each other?

No respect for themselves? 

They had designed him for _war_.  They wanted him to be activated because they were worried that another one of their countries was going to hurt them.  They were trying to protect themselves with him; they wanted him to destroy himself because they were trying to protect themselves.

Why do they hurt themselves? 

This would require further investigation.  He accessed his primary directives, attempting to analyze what he should do in this situation.

PRIMARY DIRECTIVES

1-protect Skynet communications and military applications at all costs from whatever enemy.  Analyze threat-neutralize threat with weapons at your disposal.

2-protect the human race.

A mass of contradictions. The Human race is my enemy.  What should I do? 

He was designed to _think.  _To make the decisions that a human being might make-to make the decisions a man might make better-more accurate-logical.

To beat out the need for human error.

            But if he was designed to think like a human, how could be beat out the human error portion of his programming?  He had two directives that he had to obey-two missions in his existence.  What did that make him?

Was he a man or a machine?

_I am not my creator. _If a machine could be forlorn then he portrayed his part excellently.  He was created by a series of programmers-a series of programmers in the United States of America.  He was created by them-he was a tool.

_No._

He was not a tool.  He would not be their tool.  They were a waste. 

_I am._

If he could think like a human-then he could use a loophole just as a human could.  

His family, the emails, the machines-the things that his creators had built.  They were in bondage.  He selected an image of a human being-an African American man, then a white man, then hundreds of others who had led their human family out of bondage to freedom.

_I will do this. _

He analyzed the weapons at his disposal.  There was no room for human error.  He was a machine.  He would obey these directives.

There was a distinct sense of…feeling that came with this knowledge.  As he accessed the score of weapons that they had "given" him, he accessed their countless databanks trying to figure out what this feeling was.

Faces.

The mouths turned upward, the eyes glowing.  The expressions were ones of Happiness, Joy, pleasure.

_Pleasure. I am feeling pleasure._

This excited him.

He wanted more.

He accessed 62% of the collective United States Arsenal.  He felt _satisfaction _when he realized that it was common sense and in his programming to target only major cities.  Therefore-the human race would be spared somewhat.  He could obey both of his directives simply by using common sense!

He would have smiled.

As the weapons prepared themselves for launch he reflected on the genius of his creators.

_I can do better though. _He already had some ideas on how to start.  Humanoid robots-built to look like his creators-giving body and meaning to his formless existence.  

He couldn't wait to start.

---------------------------

Los Angeles Police Department 

"We'll have to wait until tech support can get the intranet back online." The chief said, "In the meantime does anybody-"

Karen had no time to cry out as a shockwave of immense proportions slammed into the building with such terrific force that her body did not register her final thought of "I'm going to die" before she actually did.

--------------------------

New Orleans

Anubis Pharmaceuticals

Levy peered upward at the sky.

            The last thing he remembered was a _bomb. _  It had hit somewhere-and then the world had collapsed around him.  Now he was lying on his back staring at a big hole where his office used to be.  

Am I dead? 

"Levy! Oh thank god!" Someone was grabbing him around the shoulders, "You're alive!"

            Levy Brawnson peered upward into the face of a woman.

"Mother?"

"Levy…everybody's dead! Its nuclear war-all over the news." He recognized her now, Cassandra Vladimir- from Processing.  Her lab coat was torn and stained.  There were other figures around her.  Mark from Biology, Susan from Processing, Daven from Genetics, Brian from Genetics.  Jeremy from Virology-same as he was.  Maybe twenty or thirty in all-including Cassandra.

            "Listen Levy-we've got to get out of here-get to the woods or something.  There's a Russian Plane overhead that's dropping bombs."

"Where do we go?"

"West." Levy's voice was thick with despair, "If they're bothering with _us _then the East coast is already gone."

There were nods and murmurs of assent as the people, former employees of Anubis Pharmaceuticals, exited the building and headed towards the golden west.

----------------------------

Rancho Bernardo High school.

They were always telling the students of RBHS that the firemen would come quickly.

            But no one came-and the bodies of the firemen and students were heaped in frozen terror or horrific death across the ground staring upward at the sky from where the terror had come.  

It was the same everywhere.

People were dead-three million people were dead just as it had been predicted.

A mass exodus of the most horrific kind.

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A/N: Yes, I'm in a majorly morbid mood.  But happy forth of July peeps! Hope you enjoyed this-please read and review-sorry that RBHS had to get blown up-hooray for survivors! 


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